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floods!

Well, this week has been full of crazy weather. At the beginning of the week, we had some snow and freezing temperatures. That quickly switched to rain (not unusual). But the rain didn’t stop. I’ve heard conflicting reports, but it seems in 2 days alone we got between 4-6.5″ of rain. It just kept raining. And raining. And raining. We’ve been through some natural disasters before (Florida hurricanes) but at least then we had a little notice they were coming.

photo by Alexi Kostibas

All of a sudden, it became clear on Thursday that this was more than just annoying. There was a tragic terrifying accident on Wednesday night. I read about road closures because of high water, warnings about stocking up on emergency supplies, having an evacuation plan, etc. I called John and asked him to come home early. I did not want him driving home in the dark and running into high water. I did not want him stranded at work. The Willamette River separates the town where we live and the one where he works.

The girls and I ran out to the store to grab some extra food and water. John got home. That night his university closed for the next two days. Parts of that town were underwater and closed off from the rest of the town. Bridges were under water. There was a landslide in town and evacuations. At this point, our neighborhood was holding up well. But we were a little nervous. We had a little stream of water in our basement. Our town’s sewer system was overloaded. We live 2 blocks from a canal that supplies our town’s drinking water. The river was rising faster than expected (I heard some reports that it was rising a foot an hour) and was now about 5 blocks from us instead of the usual 7.

photo by Tim Corban

In the photo above, we are 5 blocks from the bottom of the water. The large white circle is part of our water treatment plant (yikes -so close!). And under the water is a park. You can’t see the playground at all. The shelter has water up to the roof. We can easily walk to this park.

I took much comfort knowing that our house is 100 years old and has survived other floods worse than this one. Friday morning we had a break in rain and the river started to recede a bit. Most of the roads were able to open up again.

By Saturday morning, life started to return to normal. I took Ruby to dance class. John drove over the bridges to care for a friend’s chickens. I drove over the river on Sunday for a little alone time. The river was still very high – over the piers that usually stand maybe 15-20 feet above water.

We have a lot of rain in the forecast and much of winter to go. Hopefully things will become a little more normal. But we made it through this round unscathed. Thanks for all the people who checked in with us!